Call for Papers
Fifteenth Annual Conference on
Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence
August 12–14, Acapulco, Mexico
Collocated with IJCAI–03
Sponsored by the American Association for Artificial Intelligence
The Fifteenth Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-2003) will highlight successful applications
of AI technology; explore issues, methods, and lessons learned in the
development and deployment of AI applications; and promote an interchange of ideas between basic and applied AI. This year's conference will take place August 12-14, 2003, in Acapulco, Mexico, collocated with the Eighteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-03).
As usual, IAAI-2003 will consist of papers in two tracks: (1) deployed application case studies and (2) emerging applications, technology, and issues — supplemented by invited talks and panel discussions. Submissions should clearly identify which track they are intended for, as the two tracks are judged on different criteria.
All areas of AI technology are of interest for both tracks, including knowledge-based systems, data mining, medical and biological
applications, vision, speech, natural language, robotics, constraintbased reasoning, software agents, interactive agents, personalization
technologies, AI in Internet search engines, use of ontologies on the
Internet, learning techniques in mobile or Internet interfaces, and
voice interfaces on mobile devices.
Deployed Application Case Study Papers
Case-study papers must describe deployed applications with measurable benefits that include some aspect of AI technology. Applications are defined as deployed once they are in production use by their
final end-users for sufficiently long that experience can be reported.
The case study may evaluate either a stand-alone application or a
component of a complex system.
Review criteria are use of AI technology, innovation, significance,
technical quality, and clarity. Original papers on the deployment issues in AI applications are welcome, even if other papers on the AI
technology have been presented at or submitted to other conferences. Each of the accepted deployed applications papers will receive
the IAAI “Innovative Application” Award.
The paper must address each of the following issues:
Task or Problem Description: Describe the task the application
performs or the problem it solves. State the objectives of the application and explain why an AI solution was important. If other solutions were tried and failed outline these solutions and the reasons for
their failure.
Application Description: Describe the application, providing key
technical details about design and implementation. What are the system components, what are their functions, and how do they interact?
What languages and tools are used in the application? How is knowledge represented? What is the hardware and software environment in
which the system is deployed? Provide examples to illustrate how the
system is used.
Uses of AI Technology: On what AI research results does the application depend? What key aspects of AI technology allowed the application to succeed? How were the techniques modified to fit the needs
of the application? If applicable, describe how AI technology is integrated with other technology. If a commercial tool is used, explain the
decision criteria used to select it. Describe any insights gained about
the application of AI technology. What AI approaches or techniques
were tried and did not work? Why not?
Application Use and Payoff: How long has this application been
deployed? Explain how widely, how often, and by whom the application is being used. Also describe the application's payoff. What measurable benefits have resulted from its use? What additional benefits
do you expect over time? What impacts has it had on the users' business processes?
Application Development and Deployment: Describe the development and deployment process. How long did they take? How many
developers were involved? What were the costs? What were the difficulties, and how were they overcome? What are the lessons learned?
What, if any, formal development methods were used?
Maintenance: Describe your experience with and plans for maintenance of the application. Who maintains the application? How often is update needed? Is domain knowledge expected to change over
time? How does the design of the application facilitate update?
Emerging Application Papers
The goal of the emerging application track is to “bridge the gap” between basic AI research and deployed AI applications, by discussing
efforts to apply AI tools, techniques, or methods to real world problems. Emerging applications are on aspects of AI applications that
are not appropriate for deployed application case studies, or are not
sufficiently deployed to be submitted as case studies. This track is distinguished from reports of scientific AI research appropriate for
AAAI's National Conference in that the objective of the efforts reported here should be the engineering of AI applications.
Emerging application papers may include any aspects of the technology, engineering, or deployment of AI applications, including discussions of prototype applications; performance evaluation of AI applications; ongoing efforts to develop large-scale or domain-specific
knowledge bases or ontologies; development of domain or task focused tools, techniques, or methods; evaluations of AI tools, techniques or methods for domain suitability; unsuccessful attempts to
apply particular tools, techniques or methods to specific domains
(which shed insight on the applicability and limitations of the tool,
technique or method); system architectures that work; scalability of
techniques; integration of AI with other technologies; development
methodologies; validation and verification; lessons learned; social
and other technology transition issues; etc.
Review Criteria: The following questions will appear on the review
form for emerging technology, application, and issue papers. Authors
are advised to bear these questions in mind while writing their papers.
Reviewers will look for papers that meet at least some (although not
necessarily all) of the criteria in each category.
Significance: How important is the problem being addressed? Is it
a difficult or simple problem? Is it central or peripheral to a category of applications? Is the tool, technique, method, or issue presented
generally applicable or domain specific? Does the tool, technique,
method, or issue offer the potential for new or more powerful applications of AI?
AI Technology: Does the paper identify AI research needed for a
particular application or class of applications? Does the paper characterize the needs of application domains for solutions of particular
AI problems? Does the paper evaluate the applicability of an AI tool,
technique, or method for an application domain? Does the paper describe AI technology that could enable new or more powerful AI applications?
Innovation: Does the tool, technique, or method advance the
state-of-the-art or state-of-the-practice of AI technology? Does the
tool, technique, or method address a new or previously reported
problem? If it is a previously reported problem, does the tool, technique, or method solve it in a different, new, more effective, or more
efficient way? Does the reported work integrate AI with other AI or
non-AI technologies in a new way? Does the work provide a new perspective on an application domain? Does the work apply AI to a new
domain?
Evaluation: Has the tool, technique, or method been tested on real data? Has it been evaluated by end users? Has it been incorporated into a deployed application? Has it been compared to other competing tools, techniques, or methods?
Content: Does the paper motivate the need for the tool, technique,
or method? Does the paper adequately describe the task it performs or
the problem it solves? Does it provide technical details about the design and implementation of the tool, technique, or method? Does the
paper clearly identify the AI research results on which the tool, technique, or method depends? Does it relate the tool, technique, or
method to the needs of application domains? Does it provide insights
about the use of AI technology in general or for a particular application domain? Does it describe the development process and costs?
Does it discuss estimated or measured benefits? Does it detail the evaluation methodology and results?
Technical Quality: Is the paper technically sound? Does it carefully evaluate the strengths and limitations of its contribution? Are the
results described and evaluated? Are its claims backed up? Does it
identify and describe relevant previous work?
Clarity: Is the paper clearly written? Is it organized logically? Are
there sufficient figures and examples to illustrate the key points? Is
the paper accessible to those outside the application domain? Is it accessible to those in other technical specialties?
Invited Talks & Panels
Nominations and suggestions for invited talks and panels are welcome and will be considered by the program committee. Invited talks
and panels should address issues or themes in the development and
deployment of AI applications. Invited speakers should be distinguished members of the research, business, or government communities who have special insights or experiences relating to directions
of AI development. Invited speaker nominations should include full
contact information, and a preliminary title and abstract of the talk.
Panels should focus on the issues underlying AI applications, and
should include panelists with a diversity of viewpoints or interests.
Case studies can be used to illustrate the issues, but should not be the
principal focus of the panels or invited talks. Panel proposals should
include a description of the topic, contact information for the organizer, a moderator and list of participants.
Submission Format
Each paper must indicate clearly in which track it should be considered. Submissions are preferred in AAAI two-column format. Please
see www.aaai.org/Publications/Author/authorinstructions.pdf for
further instructions. Papers are expected to be 6-8 pages in this format. Papers in other formats will be reviewed, but should be of similar length.
Electronic Submissions: To submit a paper electronically, authors
will be required to register on the IAAI-03 web-based paper submission software at http://www.aaaiservices.org/ConfMaster/. A login
and password, as well as detailed instructions about how to submit
an electronic paper, will be sent to the author in a subsequent email
message. Authors must then submit a formatted electronic version of
their paper through this software no later than Tuesday, January 21,
2003. Electronically submitted papers must be in trouble-free, highresolution PDF or PostScript format and formatted for United States
Letter (8 1/2" x 11") paper. The author will also be required to submit two hard copies of the paper, to arrive at the AAAI office (see address below) no later than Thursday, January 23, 2003. We cannot accept title pages or papers submitted by e-mail or fax.
Paper Submissions: If authors are unable to submit papers electronically, they can submit papers in hard copy. Authors should send
five (5) clearly legible complete copies of papers by January 21, 2003
to: IAAI–03, American Association for Artificial Intelligence, 445
Burgess Drive, Suite 100, Menlo Park, CA 94025-3442 USA.
For both online and paper submissions, each copy of the paper
must have a title page, including the title of the paper; the track to
which it is submitted; the names, affiliations, postal and e-mail addresses, and telephone and fax numbers of all authors; a designation
of the application domain(s); identification of AI techniques employed or issues addressed; an indication of application status (e.g.,
feasibility analysis, research prototype, operational prototype, deployed application, etc.); and an abstract of fewer than 200 words.
Submissions received after the deadlines or that do not meet the
length or formatting requirements detailed above and at the IAAI
web site will not be accepted for review. Notification of receipt of the
electronic paper will be mailed to the first author (or designated author) soon after receipt. If there are problems with the electronic
submission, AAAI will contact the primary author by email. Papers,
invited speaker nominations, and panel proposals will be reviewed
by the Program Committee and notification of acceptance or rejection will be mailed to the contact author in early March.
Registration or clarification inquiries may be sent to AAAI by fax
or e-mail. (Telephone: 650-328-3123, Fax: 650-321-4457, E-mail:
http://www.aaai.org/Organization/contact.html—choose IAAI Conference in the pull-down list.)
Camera-ready copy of accepted papers will be due on April 8,
2003. Camera-ready papers will be limited to six (6) complimentary
pages and two (2) optional additional pages at $275 each.
The proceedings of the conference will be published by AAAI
Press; authors will be required to transfer copyright.
John Riedl, Conference Chair University of Minnesota
Randy Hill, Program Cochair University of Southern California